Reading Passage 2   植物

Title:

When the tulip  bubble bursts (旧)

Question types:

Matching 5

T/F/NG 5

填空 3

文章大意

荷兰的tulip mania，涉及到17世纪荷兰郁金香球茎的投机的狂潮，说17世纪郁金香用于交易投机然后崩盘和现在对高科技股票的不理智投资。

参考原文及题目：

A Tulips are  spring-blooming perennials that grow from bulbs. Depending on the species,  tulip plants can grow as short as 4 inches (250px) or as high as 28 inches  (1775px). The tulip’s large flowers usually bloom on scapes or sub-scapose stems that  lack bracts. Most tulips produce only one flower per stem, but a few species  bear multiple flowers on their scapes (e.g. Tulipa turkestanica). The showy,  generally cup or star-shaped tulip flower has three petals and threesepals, which  are often termed tepals because they are nearly identical. These six tepals  are often marked on the interior surface near the bases with darker  colorings. Tulip flowers come in a wide variety of colors, except pure blue  (several tulips with “blue” in the  name have a faint violet hue).A Long before anyone ever heard of Qualcomm,  CMGI, Cisco Systems, or the other high-tech stocks that have soared during  the current bull market, there was Semper Augustus. Both more prosaic and  more sublime (崇高的) than  any stock or bond, it was a tulip of extraordinary beauty, its midnight-blue  petal stopped by a band of pure white and accented with crimson flares. To  denizens of 17th century Holland, little was as desirable.

B Around 1624,  the Amsterdam man who owned the only dozen specimens was offered 3,000  guilders (荷兰盾) for one  bulb. While there’s no accurate way to render that in today’s greenbacks, the sum was roughly  equal to the annual income of a wealthy merchant. (A few years later,  Rembrandt received about half that amount for painting The Night Watch.) Yet  the bulb’s owner,  whose name is now lost to history, nixed the offer.

C Who was  crazier, the tulip lover who refused to sell for a small fortune or the one  who was willing to splurge. That’s a question that springs to mind after reading Tulip mania: The  Story of the World’s Most Coveted Flower and the Extraordinary Passions. It aroused  by British journalist Mike Dash. In recent years, as investors have  intentionally forgotten everything they learned in Investing 101 in order to  load up on unproved, unprofitable dot-com issues, tulip mania (狂热) has been invoked frequently. In this concise, artfully written  account, Dash tells the real history behind the buzzword (流星鱼) and in doing so, offers a  cautionary tale for our times.

D The Dutch were  not the first to go gaga over the tulip. Long before the first tulip bloomed  in Europe-Bavaria, it turns out, in 1559-the flower had enchanted the  Persians and bewitched the rulers of the Ottoman Empire. It was in Holland,  however, that the passion for tulips found its most fertile ground, for  reasons that had little to do with horticulture.

E Holland in the  early 17th century was embarking on its Golden Age. Resources that had just a  few years earlier gone toward fighting for independence from Spain now flowed  into commerce. Amsterdam merchants were at the center of the lucrative East  Indies trade, where a single voyage could yield profits of 400%. They  displayed their success by erecting grand estates surrounded by flower gardens.  The Dutch population seemed torn by two contradictory impulses: a horror of  living beyond one’s means and the love of a long shot.

F Enter the  tulip. “It is  impossible to comprehend the tulip mania without understanding just how  different tulips were from every other flower known to horticulturists in the  17th century,”says Dash.  The colors they exhibited were more intense and more concentrated than those  of ordinary plants.”Despite the outlandish (奇异的)prices commanded by rare bulbs, ordinary tulips were sold by the  pound. Around 1630, however, a new type of tulip fancier appeared, lured by  tales of fat profits. These “florists,” or professional tulip traders, sought out flower lovers and  speculators alike. But if the supply of tulip buyers grew quickly, the supply  of bulbs did not. The tulip was a

conspirator (阴谋者) in the supply squeeze : It  takes seven years to grow one from seed. And while bulbs can produce two or  three clones, or “offsets,” annually, the mother bulb only lasts a few years.

G Bulb prices  rose steadily throughout the 1630s, as ever more speculators (投机者) wedged (锲入) into the market. Weavers and  farmers mortgaged whatever they could to raise cash to begin trading. In  1633, a farmhouse in Hoorn changed hands for three rare bulbs. By 1636 any  tulip-even bulbs recently considered garbage-could be sold off, often for  hundreds of guilders. A futures market for bulbs existed, and tulip traders  could be found conducting their business in hundreds of Dutch taverns. Tulip  mania reached its peak during the winter of 1636-1637, when some bulbs were  changing hands ten times in a day. The zenith came early that winter, at an  auction to benefit seven orphans whose only asset was 70 fine tulips left by  their father. One, a rare Violetten Admirael vanned Enkhuizen bulb that was  about to split in two, sold for 5,200 guilders, the all-time record. All  told, the flowers brought in nearly 53,000 guilders.

H Soon after,  the tulip market crashed utterly, spectacularly. It began in Haarlem, at a  routine bulb auction when, for the first time, the greater fool refused to  show up and pay. Within days, the panic had spread across the country.  Despite the efforts of traders to prop up demand, the market for tulips  evaporated. Flowers that had commanded 5,000 guilders a few weeks before now  fetched one-hundredth that amount. Tulip mania is not without flaws. Dash  dwells too long on the tulip’s migration from Asia to Holland. But he does a service with this  illuminating, accessible account of incredible financial folly. I Tulip mania  differed in one crucial aspect from the dot-com craze that grips our  attention today: Even at its height, the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, well  established in 1630, wouldn’t touch tulips. “The speculation in tulip bulbs always existed at the margins of  Dutch economic life,” Dash writes. After the market crashed, a compromise was brokered  that let most traders settle their debts for a fraction of their liability.  The overall fallout on the Dutch economy was negligible. Will we say the same  when Wall Street’s current obsession finally runs its course?

参考答案

Questions 14-18

The reading  Passage has seven paragraphs A-I

Which paragraph  contains the following information?

Write the correct  letter A-I, in boxes 14-18 on your answer sheet

14 Difference between  tulip and high-tech shares

15 Spread of tulip  before 17th century

16 Indication of  money offered for rare bulb in 17th century

17 Tulip was  treated as money in Holland

18 Comparison made  between tulip and other plants

Questions 19-23

Do the following statements  agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2?

In boxes 19-23 on  your answer sheet, write

TRUE  if the statement agrees with the  information

FALSE  if the statement contradicts the  information

NOT GIVEN  if there is no information on this

19 In 1624, all  the tulip collection belonged to a man in Amsterdam.

20 Tulip was first  planted in Holland according to this passage.

21 Popularity of  Tulip in Holland was much higher than any other countries in

17th century.

22 Holland was the  wealthiest country in the world in 17th century.

23 From 1630,  Amsterdam Stock Exchange started to regulate Tulips exchange market.

Questions 24-26

Summary

Complete the  following summary of the paragraphs of Reading Passage, using no more than  two words from the Reading Passage for each answer. Write your answers in  boxes 24-27 on your answer sheet.

Dutch concentrated  on gaining independence by 24 against Spain in the early

17th century,  consequently spare resources entered the area of 25. Prosperous traders  demonstrated their status by building 26 in surroundings. Attracted by the  success of profit on tulip, traders kept looking for and speculator for sale.

答案：

14 I

15 D

16 B

17 G

18 F

19 TRUE

20 FALSE

21 TRUE

22 NOT GIVEN

23 FALSE

24 fighting

25 commerce

26 estates

(答案仅供参考)

难度分析

本篇文章难度高于第一篇文章。文章三种题型中俩种常规顺序题，但是出现了学生最头痛的信息包含题。虽然文章为考生熟悉的题材，但是题目搭配对于学生来说还是比较难。

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